


Cable’s Not So Secret Admirer

by Fantasticly_Anonymous



Series: Deadpool 2, But Different! [2]
Category: Deadpool (Movieverse)
Genre: #FirstKiss, Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Basically The Whole Story Retold From Cable's Perspective, Cable Doesn’t Want To Die, Committed Poly Relationship (Eventually), Deadpool Is Delusional, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, I add tags as i go, M/M, Multi, Negasonic Is Awesome!, Protective Wade Wilson, Romance, Sensuality, Sequel Story/Companion Story to Waiting Around To Die!, Several F-Bombs Are Dropped, Slash, Time Travel, Turns Out He doesn’t Want Wade To Either!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-06-13 10:45:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15362844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fantasticly_Anonymous/pseuds/Fantasticly_Anonymous
Summary: Cable had never seen another convict like him before. A weirdo who could take a metal fist to the face and hop back up with a smile firmly in place. Healmostfound the guy’s resilience hot asshittoo. If only the mutant in the strangely tight prison jumpsuit wasn’t trying to keep him from his mission of nipping the problem of ‘Fire Fist still existing’ in the prepubescent bud.Sequel to Waiting Around To Die!





	1. First Encounters Of The Close Kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So if anyone is here because they read (and enjoyed) Waiting Around To Die and wanna see Cable’s perspective now, you’re good to go. ;D (Super super thank you for the support, by the way!)  
> If you haven’t read the first story yet, I _definitely_ recommend doing that for the good of the reading order. Though, it’s extremely possible that reading the two simultaneously, going through story number one’s chapter one and then story number two’s one (continued ad nauseam), could be utterly righteous!  
>  Either way, I hope you enjoy the Wade on Cable goodness!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. Beta’d by Ondori_naramaki, so you got issues with the grammar and spelling, take them up with _that_ author! ;D

Ever since Cable and his wife had decided to go their separate ways, he’d essentially been living the life of a hermit. He didn’t go out, he hadn’t _been_ out with anybody in at least as long, and his wife’d always said that he wouldn’t know a pickup line if it bit him on the ass.  
Well, he was _pretty_ sure that the prisoner in the inordinately tight orange jumpsuit was throwing them around like confetti at some demented, clown themed, childrens party. 

Though, he’d admit he was rusty at the game, _and_ that he’d never been any good at it to begin with, Cable was approximately 69% sure that was what was going on here.  
What he _wasn’t_ sure about, was why the annoying, flirty beyond reason inmate with the **really** nice ass was protecting his target.  
Nor why the guy with absolutely no hair wasn’t **staying** down. 

Generally, when Cable hit someone —and it didn’t always take all that much effort either— they gave up right quick. _This_ guy though, was coming back from some ‘life ending’ powered shots. Going so far as **countering** ; almost getting in a few good swipes of his own. Which, in and of itself, was far more unsettling than the fact that the guy kept speaking lewd comments after being thoroughly impaled with a disease ridden length of rebar. 

When the weirdo caught up to him, before he could complete his mission of eliminating Fire Fist from the timeline he’d ravaged, they’d exchanged a few more improbable, death defying blows. All with a running, weirdly flirtatious commentary from the guy who’s jumpsuit was getting more and more full of holes but who’s body, which Cable could see more and more of, didn’t seem to be any worse for wear. 

“Hey, handsome, it’s too bad we didn’t meet at a time you _weren’t_ trying to murder an innocent kid, ‘cause we won’t have any time for love making until you forget about the Kiwi and you’re ready to give me your **undivided** attention.”

Cable didn’t know what to do with that, aside from drive his techno organic fist into the guy’s face hard enough that he felt the unmistakable snap of a well formed jawbone. 

Didn’t stop his ‘dance’ partner from getting in the way of his next _perfectly_ aimed death strike, keeping the future mass murderer alive for just a few seconds longer, but it did stop him from talking for a beat. Intelligibly, anyway. 

“Come on, gorgeous, let’s hug it out,” slurred a wet sounding voice from _right_ next to his ear. An instant before Cable was swallowed up in a **firm** upper body embrace. Which he broke out of the moment the shock of not having been stabbed or lacerated or otherwise _injured_ when the no doubt felon somehow got the drop on him. 

That time, he broke the guy’s femur. Just to be sure he’d stay down. Which —of _course_ — didn’t work worth a shit. The guy got right back up and held out a closed hand, saying-

“Surprise!”

Then, the inmate with the freakiest mutative power Cable had ever seen opened his fist, giving him warning _just_ enough in advance that he could activate his shield and avoid being smeared against the prison wall by one of his own concussive grenades. 

Thoughtful, for someone who’d landed themselves in a super max prison at the top of a secluded mountain peak. It was almost too bad the guy’d gone and killed himself. Just to protect a kid who would bring incalculable death and destruction to their very world. If Cable didn’t succeed and **stop** him before he reached his full potential. 

 

~

 

Hoisted by his own, explosive petard. That’s how he found himself nursing a concussion headache and a few bruises in a cheep motel room back in the populated part of town.  
Guzzling down a few beers to help take the edge off the... not quite regret he felt at how single minded he _needed_ to stay for this whole ‘save the future and his family’ thing to work. 

_Almost_ wishing the inmate with the weird idea of a good time hadn't needed to die, Cable cracked open another lukewarm ‘cold one’ and drank it in a one draft salute to a good fighter gone... arguably too soon. 

Then, he stowed the dangerous sentimentality and went back to preparing for the next time he’d have a chance at nipping this Fire Fist problem in the proverbial bud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. That’s Cable for you. So work oriented. Barely had time to enjoy the _extremely_ nice view.  
>  Barely. But he still _did_. Heh heh!


	2. Second Chances Really Do Exist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second fateful meeting of our heroes. How does Cable think it goes? Better, or worse than the first?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The magnificent Ondori_naramaki once again deigned to beta for this lowly story. Just don’t let the compliments go to their head! XD

Morning started for Cable with more weapons prep and a little de-hangovering energy drink he always carried around with him. Mostly for other people, but on the occasion he needed it himself, he was glad he had it. 

Today was a day where having a clear head would help. Like most days, but _extra_ so this day. After all: a super max, mutant-convict-moving convoy wasn’t gonna be easy to break into. Especially not while it was rolling through the middle of the city. But that was also where Cable’d get his best, clearest shot at the kid. Because the guards would be more distracted, looking for danger in every direction well enough that it would take a while for enough of them to notice his incursion for them to have a _chance_ at stopping him. 

Cable had it on good authority —namely the inane, incessant news coverage coming at him from _every_ angle— exactly which location the prisoners were being moved to. That made it a fairly simple matter to put his ability to _read a fucking map_ to use and figure the most likely route the convoy would travel.  
Then it was simple strategy to get himself perched in the perfect place for intercept and ‘disposal’. Extreme prejudice warranted. 

So he hid, and he waited, and when the convoy approached, his muscles, techno and organic alike, bunched and he hopped that train with barely a hitch.  
Unfortunately, something that he hadn’t accounted for was waiting for him, between the rows of convicts: an _extremely_ lucky, exceedingly skilled in hand to hand, woman who’d beaten him to the punch. 

What Cable wondered, as the athletic aficionado somehow maneuvered herself into an improbable configuration around his neck, was why in God’s name he’d now had to fight _two_ completely separate people for his right to kill the monster who’d ravaged his world. It was _their_ Future too. You’d think someone would have gotten the hint by now. 

“You go girl!” Cable heard from the open back of the transport, not far off. 

The lady hanging from his neck exchanged words with the interloper while Cable focused on finding a way to pry her **off** before he started suffering oxygen deprivation. Thankfully, it turned out an unnecessary worry on his part. 

When the choking pressure around his throat let up and the born brawler with the righteous hair bounced for the front of the vehicle, Cable turned to assess the new threat.  
Hm. Mostly red, a dash of black, and one hundred percent **dead** if he tried to get between Cable and his ending of the evil mutant who’d terrorized his timeline. 

When the red bodysuited weirdo who was probably working _with_ the woman who’d —even though she didn’t look military— actually somehow stood a sliver of a chance against his **years** of combat training and experience in the field stepped forward, it was straight into an instinctive salvo from a pistol Cable rarely remembered drawing. It just came to his hand when it was needed.  
Which it turned out, was indeed **now**. Because this freak was most certainly a mutant of some kind. What with the way he was able to cut through or slap away the first few rounds with the swords he pulled from holsters on his back. Then, his body _ate_ the rest of them when he started just waving his shiny sticks around seemingly without any purpose. Like he was trying to show off as opposed to **stopping the bullets**.  
Weird. 

“Look, sugar plumb, I love getting shot at in front of the open back door of a screaming metal death trap just as much as the next spandex clad antihero, but maybe we can find us a pen and paper and make this _much_ easier?”

“Make _what_ ‘easier’?” Cable asked. Reloading his pistol on autopilot while he wracked his brain to place that oh-so familiar voice. 

“You giving me your digits.” 

Wait, Cable thought as his fingers spasmed around his gun. That annoying cadence; that flirtatious attitude. It _couldn’t_ be. The guy from the prison was dead, so...

“ _Pretty_ sure you were just trying to give me your number, sweet cakes. And I was trying to take it down, but I’m _pretty_ sure my katana got in the way and-“

Before Cable realized it, he’d shot another handful of holes through the **zombie** at the back of the transport. Then found himself transfixed as the red clad sound-alike pinwheeled his arms and just barely stopped himself from falling out the opening to the busy street behind. And his second doom. 

When Red _didn’t_ fall to his gruesome death, Cable remembered why it was he was there in the first place: to stop a decades long, murderous, flaming rampage before it started.  
Too bad he’d allowed himself to get distracted by the clown in the caboose though, because now the guy was flush up against him and asking some non sequitur about whether nine follows six. 

Cable knew that, when in a confrontation with dangerous types, one of the best favors you can do yourself is make the lowlife know _you’re_ in charge. So he let out a low growl and took control of the situation by telling the ruffian exactly what for.  
“Fuck off, you red waxed piece of Swiss cheese,” he said, realizing near the end that his pistol was sandwiched thoroughly between his and his... opponent’s thighs.  
He couldn’t squeeze off a round without chancing shooting his own leg, and if that happened, there was no way he’d ever succeed at his mission. So no pistol till he broke that clinch. 

When the gibbering guy crushed against him seemed most distracted by his own words, Cable snagged the closest hand he could get a hold of, and summarily snapped the arm in a couple places. Having remembered that that had been ever so slightly more effective than shooting the guy, back in the prison anyway.  
The dislocation at the end was a nice touch and bought him the extra seconds he needed to reach the cell and- _Damn it_!

“Looking for someone?” Asked a two hundred pound red sack of wasted resources from where it’d _launched_ itself onto his back. 

“Yeah. Not you, asshole,” Cable gritted out as he compensated his stance to account for the sudden extra weight. 

From there, they tussled, Cable might’ve stabbed the guy, the guy might’ve wrapped him up like a mummy in his **_powerful_** embrace; it was all a bit of a high octane blur.  
Probably the thing that blurred it all out the worst though, was the world ending crash that sent the entire transport over the brand new edge of the freeway and down to a cinder block and concrete grave. One Cable had to extract _himself_ from and was going to be picking pieces of out of his servos for no less than a week. 

Though he knew the peace keepers —‘coppers’ in this time, he believed— would be there at any given moment, Cable took the time for a few recuperative breaths and allowed himself to survey the scene.  
It was a horrible tragedy. The citizenry wouldn’t be able to use that stretch of roadway for as long as it took modern repair technology to put it back together again and by the looks of things: that was going to be a while. 

His eye was also caught by the worrying shimmer of a sizable pool of dark liquid which sat alone amidst the wreckage. Along with a few feet of what appeared to be _human_ intestines and other sundry scraps of viscera. 

It looked suspiciously like someone had been gutted there. And, seeing as there was no indication of a body having been dragged off and hidden, Cable took an educated guess as to the _who_ in this situation.  
But, knowing the spandexed weirdo the way he was getting to, wasn’t a stretch to figure they’d be seeing each other again. **Soon**. 

Time to take some preventive measures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Cable isn’t catching any breaks with this. Hopefully he figures out _soon_ that he doesn’t need to be cruel to be kind! Wade likes him just the way he is!


	3. Video Killed The Radio Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, what’s Cable got in mind for his evening? Probably nothing he’ll enjoy. But it’s pretty likely neither will who he’s gonna be spending said evening _with_. Heh heh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That Saint, Ondori_naramaki, has once again left their fingerprints all over this new chapter. If you notice any smudges, that’s what that is. ;D

Finding the whereabouts of the best friend of one ‘Wade Wilson’ turned out to take next to zero effort. Only a quick search in this time period’s excuse for a World Wide Web got Cable a list of known associates and within seconds he had that narrowed down to a bar owner/operator who went by the name ‘Weasel’. 

He hadn’t really been paying attention to the young Fire Fist’s roommate’s listed name when he’d looked the kid up in the prison database, but he’d still remembered it. All the easier because it was alliterative and had a vaguely nice ring to it.  
So he’d plugged the name in and bingo: the guy making his mission **way** harder than it needed to be popped up and Cable popped on over to Wade’s best friend’s bar. Where he waited in the shadows outside until the owner himself skulked outside and set fire to a small, obviously hand rolled cigarette of some kind. 

Cable snatched the Weasel from behind, right as the first wispy trail of smoke went up from the cigarette’s lighted tip. He didn’t bother covering the vermin’s mouth, seeing as no one would come to help if he screamed for it. Which, interestingly enough, he didn’t. Opting instead to insist that he had a ‘prescription’ for that and that it was a ‘misdemeanor at most anyway, man’. 

By the time Cable had the guy tied up and stuck to a chair, he’d already decided that it wasn’t going to take much to get him talking. A good glower, a well insinuated threat, and he’d know what he wanted to know.  
Only problem there? Turned out he wasn’t sure what it was he wanted to know. 

“I swear, I’ll tell you anything, man, just _please_ don’t remove my fingernails one by one and then make me eat them. I don’t eat them while they’re **on** my fingers, man! Why would you _do_ something so fucked up?!”

Cable rolled his eyes as the sad excuse for an owner of an establishment of sin and vice began sobbing and mumbling hysterically. Then the guy with the hostage took a menacing step forward, minutely pleased when it got him the attention he needed, and opened his mouth, hoping it would know what to say better than his brain did.  
“You tell me what I need to know and I won’t _have_ to.”

“Oh God, please, please, _please_ , _**please**_ don’t-“

“Tell me what I need to-“

“Yes! Yes, okay, alright, fine, I’ll tell you **anything**!” The bespectacled man promised, ending in a whimper. 

“Your friend, Wade Wilson?” Cable started. 

“Yeah, I know where he lives, what day his fiancée was murdered, which bank he uses, his debit pin; I can forge his signature-“

“What’s his favorite color?” 

Every mouth in the tiny room shut with a click. A hint of disbelief ringing in the sudden, silent void. 

“What the **fuck** kind of question is _that_?” Demanded the Weasel, sounding almost as if he’d grown a pair in the few moments his life hadn’t been in obvious danger of being taken from him. 

“The kind you _better_ know the answer to,” Cable growled, stopping to bring his eyes level with his ‘guest’s’. Who quailed when his techno organic glare started glowing. 

“Please don't melt my brain!”

“How can I get that fucking weirdo to leave me the the **hell** alone?!”

“Oh, fuck, _pleas_ don’t fry my tiny, tiny brain!”

“Then answer my questions!” Cable demanded, surging forward and grabbing the soft minded individual by the shirt collar. 

All he got for his efforts was a high pitched, protracted scream _right_ in the eardrum. 

 

~

 

When Cable finally schlepped his banged up body back to his rented room, the first thing he did was flop down on the bed and curse his rotten- _worse_ than rotten luck.  
The second thing he did was flick the television on and let the drivel of the era flow over him like an annoying, babbling brook over bone tired pebbles. 

“-the Juggernaut has yet to be found-“

Cable bolted to a sit and found the news show on the flickering screen had just switched to a story about a canine who’d saved a young child from drowning in a well.  
Though rather touching, he didn’t have time for good news right then. Especially not if what he’d heard scant moments ago was actually true. 

Cable flipped through channels until he found one of the more doom and gloom stations, which just so happened to have a screen-wide photograph of _exactly_ what Cable had been hoping it wouldn’t.  
Juggernuat was indeed on the loose. And if his gut wasn’t just being a little bitch at the bone chilling confirmation, it was telling him that the ultimate fighting force had teamed up with the _just_ -young-enough-that-he-could- **be** -killed Fire Fist. 

Cable laid himself back down with a heavy groan, flicking off the television as an offhanded afterthought.  
When his taught muscles finally began to loosen for the evening, he allowed himself to think about what it was he was going to have to do tomorrow, and how very _awkward_ it was all going to be. After all, until a couple minutes ago, he’d been trying to keep ‘Wade Wilson’ and his little gang of evil-mutant loving thugs **out** of his way. Or kill them trying. 

Rolling over and shutting his eyes tight, Cable decided that for his mission to work, he was going to need to suck it the fuck up and ask for help from the weirdo in red and his gaggle of cult like supporters. 

Decision made, the man on a now _slightly_ different mission pulled a pillow under his head and started counting electric sheep, **ready** for a little regenerative shut-eye. While his mind shut down for a good, hard reboot, Cable begrudgingly allowed it a few parting thoughts. Such as: his nemesis, the unstoppable red clad pain in his ass, was probably doing _exactly_ the same thing right now. Especially if he’d been eviscerated by the Juggernaut. 

And his last thought before restorative sleep: he’d figured out his stalker’s favorite color. Red. Fucker parades around in a _red_ suit for God’s sake. Shouldn’t have been that hard to figure out. 

So the guy who was gonna go ask his enemies for help in the morning let himself feel like a total dumbass the few seconds it took him to completely shut down, with the quid pro quo that tomorrow _he_ was gonna be the smartest person in the room. All day long.  
Yep. Smartest person in the room, asking his enemies for help. Like a dumbass. 

Fuck this was gonna be awkward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha! Cable’s finally realized he has to play nice to get what he wants! Hope that works out for him!


	4. A Little Help From His Not Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter chronicles the first time Cable tries ‘playing nice’ on for size. It probably works better than he was expecting!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta, beta, who’s got the beta? Turns out, Ondori_Naramaki’s still here, so I guess _I_ do.  
>  I wonder if they’re contagious? Not a bad thing to catch though, so let’s hope so!

Well, Cable was wrong. Asking for help from folks you’d been seemingly trying to kill wasn’t awkward. It was _fucking_ awkward.  
Especially once the guy who suddenly had a tiny set of baby legs instead of his regular, full grown legs started crying. Just because he’d walked in. 

Didn’t help that the Weasel ratted on him and his half-assed, impromptu attempt at an ‘information session’ the previous evening. Guy was lucky he still _had_ fingernails. So Cable glared at him to remind him of that wonderful fact. 

Spineless dude bowed out pretty quick after that. 

The most surprising thing about the entire meeting turned out to have been when Cable’d walked in and no one had been happy to see him —not the surprising part— except the guy on the couch, sporting a pair of child sized legs and crying over his coming for a visit.  
Hm. 

Aside from that, it really hadn’t been that bad. A few disbelieving looks here, a few ‘if I ever meet you in a dark alley we both know who’s going down’ looks there; pretty standard fare overall.  
And he’d come out of it with a brand new team to back him up. Or, at least, a new partner he was _pretty_ sure he could count on to help him achieve his objective. Of tracking down Fire Fist and making sure that he never had the _chance_ to take a human life.  
One way or another.

As soon as Wade started in on his courteous host’s food reserves, mentioning something about that being just the trick to get his legs grown back out, the Woman who’d nearly choked Cable out the day before on the transport, and the young man who topped out at her eyebrows, began the process of duct taping the ‘Deadpool’ costume back together.  
_Definitely_ at least A little annoyed by all the crunching, munching, and ripping tape noises in the small apartment, Cable decided to do the last of his prep out on the porch. Alone.

Comfortably seated on a lopsided pile of cinder blocks, just underneath the eves of the strange house, Cable pulled up any surveillance footage he could get his greedy mitts on. Within minutes he knew exactly where it was the destructive duo had gone after the crash through the freeway, and every stop they’d made after, leading all the way back to where all of this had originally started. For Fire Fist anyway.  
The orphanage. For the gifted.

When Cable came out of his ‘searching the web with my slightly cybernetic mind fugue’, he gave his eyes a rub and focused his weary stare across the street instead of at the cragged concrete a few feet in front of his sorry excuse for a seat.  
Scanning the opposite curb, he was startled to find that for once, someone had been watching _him_ while his guard was down.  
Pretty disconcerting thought. But at least the creep trying to psych him out with nothing but a constipated glower from the front seat of a ratty old sedan was more of a threat to himself than anyone else. Let alone Cable. 

The Weasel lost all nerve after about five seconds of unwavering eye contact and ended up gunning the engine and tearing off down the narrow residential street at approximately one point three times the posted speed limit. Making a rude hand gesture out his missing driver’s side window until he skidded around the corner. Where he pushed his clunker even harder when he realized he could still see Cable in his rear view. 

The whole thing was laughable. But not _so_ that Cable would actually laugh about it. Not out loud anyway.  
...Not more than **once**. Quietly. 

Wasn’t ten minutes later that the reddest member of the new ‘team’ threw the front door open hard enough that it bounced off the peeling outer wall and slammed itself shut again. Right on the guy’s face too.  
_Also_ only funny enough for one, **quiet** laugh. But funny all the same. 

The group loaded up into the cab Cable hadn’t realized _belonged_ to the youngest of them, and Wade, fully decked out in his ‘Deadpool’ fight suit, pointed forward and **yelled** , “Alright, Dopinder, you know the way!”

Before his ears stopped ringing, Cable heard the cabbie respond with, “I’m humbled that you have such faith in me, Mr. Pool, but I am afraid I don’t yet know _where_ it is you wish me to drive.”

“Oh. Right. In that case: Onward, to the X-Complex!”

“ _That_ , I can do!” Enthused the driver, less than a moment before the engine engaged and, like the Weasel from earlier, they were speeding down the street and nearly flipping over with the g-force of the hairpin corner turn. 

Cable was getting too old for this shit. 

 

~

 

After Wade got his pleas for mutant backup rejected by some douche called ‘Colossus’, the red weirdo spent the next stint of their drive weeping into his mask.  
Cable understood the need for the healthy expression of emotions, positive and negative, and so spent that time staring out the window at the steadily worsening scenery zipping by. Their driver happily braking traffic laws as he drove them from the beautiful countryside surrounding the X-Manor to the most hideous part of the past it had yet been Cable’s misfortune to-

“Wade, why the hell have you been sobbing for the last twelve and a half goddamn minutes?” Asked Domino from her seat next to Cable in the back of the cab. 

“Mind your own ‘goddamn’ business; can’t you see I’m getting psyched up for our upcoming fight?!” Argued the mutant in the front seat. 

“By _crying_?”

“Yes, by crying! You should try it sometime, Dom. It’s a great stress reliever!”

“He’s right. It _does_ relieve stress.” The ensuing silence suggested to Cable that what he’d said was not common knowledge in this ass-backwards excuse for a time period.  
The _staring_ got him to offer an explanation. “What? The future’s not a happy place.”

 

~

 

Why do you encourage him?” Asked Cable as soon as Wade finished up telling their cab driver to stay behind while they fought a couple apocalypse level mutants outside a run-down orphanage. 

“Uh, I don’t know, Cable. Why do _you_ carry that dirty hobo bear around?” The guy in red parried, managing to catch the man from the future off guard. 

“...Because it reminds me that there’s good in this world. It belonged to my daughter,” Cable explained, a little surprised by his openness. 

“Your hobo daughter?” At that bit of insensitivity, Cable made a noise of derision and pulled ahead of the group. All seriousness once again. After all, it was about fucking **time** he and his extremely capable team of freaks got serious about bringing down two of the most dangerous mutants who’d ever ravaged their planet. 

 

~

 

Sometime around when Cable was busy getting his head ground into the cheap, cragged to shit, decades old pavement in front of the orphanage —courtesy, his worst nightmares come to life in the form of the mutant known as the Juggernaut— he noticed a few new players had entered the arena.  
A kid with a kusarigama type chain weapon which appeared to be a conduit for some form of self generated electricity, a second kid in a yellow jumpsuit who looked like she had exploding shield powers, and some colossal, shiny, silver dude who _better_ not have been making eyes at **his** annoying, red, pain in the ass while he pulled that cast iron fence stake out of his stupid, babbling head. Or else. 

It wasn’t until the only mutant around who was even _close_ to the Juggernaut’s size joined the fight that Cable had a second to breathe, and he took full advantage of it by getting himself a lungful and making for the back of the building. Where he thought he heard squeaky, prepubescent threats along with the occasional fire blast causing untold destruction to the ancient, likely privately owned, property. 

When he looked to his side, Cable saw that his new partner had also taken advantage of the unexpected, no doubt soon-to-be- **dead** backup, followed him, and was gearing up to help with the inconvenient arrival of a double handful of armed orderlies. 

“You take the ones on the right, I take the ones on the left?” Cable suggested, pistols coming to his hands as they always did when needed. 

“Any chance I could borrow one of those?” Cable heard Wade ask as he checked the breeches for live rounds. 

Glancing over at the indestructible weirdo in the outfit that hugged his ass even better than his prison jumpsuit had, Cable took a moment to reign in a chuckle before answering. “...I think you’ll manage without.”

“Right. Guess I’ll use this brick then,” Wade said as he picked up a brick that was just laying in the middle of the blatantly, _unforgivably_ , non child safe playground.  
“Maximum effort,” Cable thought he heard, right before the two of them jumped weapons-first into one of the easiest fights in the history of extremely deadly fights. 

 

~

 

“Watch out!” Cable felts shouted into his ear as he was pulled under a metal slide and held in a tight, unmistakably **protective** , embrace which left him both unsinged and _thoroughly_ confused.  
One which took him longer than he would have liked it to wrench himself from after the fire and brimstone had dissipated from **all around them**. 

“You sure you can still stop this kid from going dark side? He’s trying to roast us,” Cable said, hoping none of the cowardly ‘fear for his life’ he was beginning to feel poked through his well-envied poker face. 

“We’re still alive, aren’t we? Besides, we can’t give up on him! He’s got goodness in his heart, and if there’s good in a heart, there’s _always_ hope!“

“I’ll fuckin’ **kill** you _and_ your cyborg boyfriend if you try to get in my way again, Wade! You can’t stop me!”

Cable gave Wade his best ‘told you so’ face and re-raised his remaining pistol. 

“No, I still have thirty seconds. Let me have them.” Cable met the white eye areas of Wade’s mask with a harsh, disapproving gaze. Not enjoying the idea of giving Fire Fist more opportunities in which to roast someone, but knowing that he’d given his word on the matter. So he let the weirdo finish his piece. “I can _do_ this. The kid deserves to live.”

“Thirty seconds. I’ll give you that, but I’m not letting him kill _any_ one,” Cable agree-warned, gesturing minutely with the hand filled with the grip of the only of his pistols that still had ammunition in the chamber. Or still had a **chamber** , for that matter. 

“That’s all I ask. Thanks for believing in me, sweet-“

“Clock’s ticking,” he cut off the guy before he could really get going. 

“I’m going, I’m going!” Cable let Wade say before watching the guy in red step out into the open with his hands up.  
Watching the attempt at a peace talk from the questionable safety of the underside of the metal slide. Unaware that he was about to fill his new partner’s heart with a lead bullet it wasn’t going to be able to spit back out. 

Doubly unaware the pain the completely unexpected, _unintended_ turn of events was going to cause his own, completely organic ticker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh-Oh. Sounds like more than one person’s getting a broken heart today. Too bad one has to be literally. Yikes. Wonder what Cable’s gonna do about it in the next part?


	5. Bang Bang, I Shot You Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now Cable knows the depth of guilt felt by anyone who’s ever hurt someone who has a super obvious crush on them. At least, if that someone who did the hurting has a crush on the hurt-ee as well.  
> Big difference? Cable accidentally shot his crush-ee in the heart. Yikes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psst. OndoriNaramaki beta’d this. Pass it on. Unless you’re in class. Then maybe, read this later anyway?

Cable’s hand went lax around his pistol and the gun hit the ground only a moment after the mutant in whom his bullet had hit true landed. Because, while he’d made a flawless kill shot, the round hadn’t hit what he’d been aiming for. Or rather, _who_ he’d been aiming for. 

Now, instead of the monster who’d some far flung day from now killed his family—who was now blubbering and begging forgiveness he wasn’t likely to get—Cable’d ended the life of the only person who’d ever made him feel as confused as he’d felt over these past few, **insane** days.  
The man with the alliterative name, a smile that never quit, and an ass that Cable’d recognize in _any_ crowd. 

Wade Wilson was dying and it was all Cable’s fault. By his hand. By his itchy trigger finger and a hero complex he _really_ needed to get a handle on. Before any other arguably innocent people went down in the wake of his blinded, singleminded blaze of glory. 

The shock- the _horror_ of hitting something that he **absolutely** hadn’t meant to glued Cable to the spot and made his extremities tingle in a decidedly guilty way. Before they lost feeling all together. Maybe hoping if he couldn’t feel them, he wouldn’t end up killing anyone else who... mattered to him. 

Mattered? Since when- **Mattered**?! That hyperactive weirdo?  
But, as much as that made negative one _thousand_ percent sense, it absolutely wasn’t _not_ true. If it was, Cable wouldn’t be counting the seconds between the crispy-red guy’s raspy, blood tinged breaths. Begging them not to stop. Not yet. Not before he could figure out some way to-

Cable had to stop himself from stumbling to the side as the solution to his ‘the mutant who it turns out he cares about took a bullet for a murderous child and is _dying_ ’ problem smacked him upside the head. It was so **obvious** it was shocking.   
“Help me get the suppression collar off!” He barked at the collection of people who, like him, were just standing around _watching_ the hero of the hour an hero himself to death. 

“We cannot. It is his decision, Cable, and he has made it. He is _happy_ to die.” The strains of strained, Russian tinted English assaulted Cable’s sensibilities as he tried to stay calm even as his self appointed _partner_ lay bleeding and dying in a pile of rubble.  
And how had the fucking- **huge** , silver colored nihilist known his name? They hadn’t even met yet!

“You dipshit. Haven’t you noticed that he’s been suicidal since before I even showed up? He’s not in his right mind,” Cable tried to keep below a yell as he gave the ignoramos a withering glare. 

“Wade, you’re my friend and I can’t let you just throw your life away for me.” At the plaintive statement, Cable looked over at the kid he’d thought very little of outside of his mission of ‘must **kill** ’ and saw genuine grief on the young face. 

“Kid, _seriously_ , I’m not up for playing another round of ‘ **stop** trying to ‘help’ me’,” Wade informed with a full body wince Cable could see from where he’d yet to step away from the others, still standing around like useless art pieces.   
“Let an insanely awesome vigilante contract killer die in peace for once in your godda-“

“The commi’s dead-ass wrong and the kid’s got more sense than the two of you _combined_ ,” said Cable as he _finally_ got himself to step up beside Wade and the kid. “We lose people. That’s life. Doesn’t mean we should give up on it,” he said in what he hoped was a bolstering manner as he crouched in the smoldering rubble. 

“ _Seriously_? Now that I’m finally getting what I want, you want me to **not** die?” Asked the well-charred guy on the ground. 

“Yes,” Cable insisted, as he reached for the thing that was stopping Wade from regenerating and saving his own-  
He barely held in an inexplicable smile when the guy pawed his hand away, but he managed to stay serious and explain exactly what it was he was about to do. “I’m gonna disengage the collar. So you can spit out that bullet and go back to being the most annoying human on the face of this godforsaken planet. Deal?”

“No! That is _exactly_ opposite of the ‘deal’!” Cable watched Wade half-yell. Right before the guy hacked on something that sounded like it was deep in his chest. 

“Uh-huh,” Cable said with a ‘this is **happening** whether you like it or not’ face. To which, Wade made a ‘nuh-uh’ one right back. 

“There’s no _way_ you could get this collar off without killing me in the process and even if you **could** ,” Wade paused to choke on a little more blood, “I wouldn’t _let_ you. So there.”

“You **can’t** stop me and I _can_ disengage the mutation suppression collar. I’ve got a fucking techno-organic _arm_!” Cable forgot to not-yell as he scooted a little closer to the dying guy.

“Don’t forget the glowey eye,” Wade reminded. Unnecessarily. 

“Wade?” Cable asked. No hint of a yell that time. 

“Hm?” 

“I’m gonna save your goddamn life. Any objections?” 

“I _will_ bite my tongue off,” Wade threatened. Expression pretty serious for a guy who probably didn’t know what serious _meant_.

“No you won’t,” Cable informed. Matter of factly. 

“Don’t try me, big boy. I have sharp teeth and I know _exactly_ how to use the-“ Recognizing the threat’s validity from a scene in a classic movie of the current era, Cable tore the glove off of his organic hand and shoved said, bitable appendage as far in Wade’s mouth as he figured he could without obstructing the guy’s airway. 

“Yeah?” Cable started, able to sound confident now that he’d put a stopper in that plan. “Well either put those babies to work or shut the hell up and let me do my goddamn job,” he dared. Remembering what lengths Wade had gone to to **not** hurt him over the last few days. 

“What _is_ your ‘goddamn job’?” The kid- _Russel_ asked from still right next to Wade. Even though he’d gotten a mouthful of blood spluttered on him for his closeness. 

Hm, Cable thought as he _didn’t_ answer the question, focusing instead on disengaging the death collar, Russell really _wasn’t_ an evil, dangerous mutant who needed to be stopped at all costs. He just needed to be shown a little kindness for once in his goddamn life.   
Kinda like Wade had shown Cable, in the way he’d flirted with him and _not_ killed him on their first two encounters; how he’d cried out of happiness upon seeing him safe and sound after the freeway crash; and the way he was keeping up a lighthearted banter with him even though he thought he was about to die. 

Ooh, scratch that, Cable thought as he finished removing the now disengaged collar: The way Wade was keeping up a lighthearted banter with him even though the guy was still _actively_ trying to end his own life. By biding his time until Cable removed his hand from his mouth and then biting off his own tongue.   
Now **that’s** dedication. To death _and_ to trying not to hurt his friend from the future. Any more than necessary. 

“It’ll grow back.” Cable said with complete confidence. Both for his new friend’s benefit as well as for his own. 

“Fuck you, Clint Eastwood.”

“Well, obviously, _someone_ hasn’t seen the end of the movie,” Cable deadpanned, looking forward to being able to have many, **many** more of these stupid, pointless conversations in the future. With his very alive partner. Who’d just knocked Russell in the head as he bolted into a seated position, seemingly recovered enough that he didn’t feel like laying in a crap ton of burned-to-hell-and-back shit anymore. 

Cable watched, enthralled, as the crumbled up chunk of lead he’d never meant to put there backed its way out of Wade’s chest and bounced harmlessly off the guy’s thigh and off into the refuse that once made up the orphanage’s now ruined assembly hall. 

“There. Better?” 

“Well,” Wade started, now that Cable’d gotten his attention, “I still wanna die, but-“

Then Cable got blood vomited all over his front. But he kept his face neutral and told himself he kinda deserved that and to suck it up and get on with his fucking life already, _geez_. After all, you shoot someone in the chest and all they want in return is a place to vomit blood? You’re getting the shiny end of the stick.   
At least he got an ‘Oops’ out of it. 

“Uh, sorry. But, uh, yeah, death still sounds pretty nice around now.”

Cable held in a snicker at the ridiculous statement which he was pretty sure was at least _half_ humorous, and stood from his knee-killing crouch.   
“He’s gonna be fine,” he said as he moved back to give the guy who’d narrowly escaped Death’s clutches a little breathing room. 

“Nope,” Wade started in a **definitely** half-kidding voice. “Gonna go home and kill myself for **good** this time. I think I got it all planned out too. Yes, every last tiny, insignificant detail is clear to me now.” Then he paused to give each of the folks who were still just standing around a chance to look directly into his eyes. Probably to see the almost seriousness there. “I even know which song’s gonna be playing in the background, and it’s going to be a **sad** one and I’m getting Adam Lambert to belt it out, specially for my suicidal ears only.” Then he pointed directly at Cable. “ _You’re_ not invited!”

“Oh, I’m _definitely_ invited,” Cable said. Before deciding that Wade’d had enough filibuster time and that they all needed to leave before the coppers showed up and arrested —or _tried_ to, anyway— the whole team of them. Even the teenagers. So he stepped back up to the friend who’d just vomited blood all over him and offered a hand up. Which was taken after only four seconds of gawk-eyed staring. 

The freak was adorable. Once you got used to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can feel it. This is the start of something beautiful.  
> I wonder whether that’s what our intrepid heroes are thinking right this second? Guess the only way to know is ask Josh Brolin and Ryan Reynolds!


	6. Driving Miss Daisy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having won the climactic boss battle, what’s left for our heroes? An ignoble end at the hands of early onset rheumatoid arthritis? No? Well, how ‘bout a little love then?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, beta’d by the one, the only, the singular, the omniscient, OndoriNaramaki!

As soon as the happy shock of their young cab driver brutally ending the life of the piece of slime who’d nearly turned a decent kid into a mass murderer wore off, the team—minus the X-Backup—unstuck themselves from their I-can’t-believe-he-just- _did_ -that statue poses and made for their ride. 

Having reached the death cab, Russell shouting something about ‘calling shotgun’ before hopping in the front seat, the boy seeming unperturbed at the blood smeared across that half of the windshield, Cable decided it would be a good idea to make sure Wade had no way of throwing himself out of a moving vehicle that day. Just in case he was just a little more serious about the whole ‘still wanting to die’ thing than anyone thought. 

For being as big a badass as she was, it turned out Domino was also strikingly thoughtful. Allowing Cable to corral Wade into the middle of the rear bench and himself against one door, the woman seeming content to have no say in which seating position she ended up with. Not even making any protest when Wade started poking her in the bicep to test the strength of his own luck factor. Which must have been pretty strong that day, considering he didn’t end up with a busted finger. Plus the fact that he wasn’t **already** dead. 

Eventually, the hyperactive man-child got bored of his ‘will she, won’t she bite this off if I keep poking her?’ game and instead sat facing forward with his arms politely to himself. But after a few seconds of blissful quiet, the mercenary in the fried armored suit addressed Cable with a twitch of his head.  
“Not that I’ve forgiven you for saving my life,” Wade started, sounding just a hair unsure of himself, “but, uh... when are you planning on going back to your no longer dead future family?” 

“We’re divorced,” Cable said, matter of factly. 

“Come again?” Wade asked, confusion winning out over anything else he might have been feeling.

“My wife and I divorced a few years ago. We’re still friends. I was coming to visit my daughter when Fire Fist... got there first.”

“Oh.” Wade paused to tap out a rhythm against his own lap. Likely at a loss as to what to say to that.  
“So, when’re you planning to go back?” 

Domino might have sighed at that, but Cable found the earnest, honest question endearing enough that he just had to chuckle. Out loud. Before answering as seriously as he could. “I’m thinking of sticking around. Making sure your annoying ass doesn’t kill itself.”

“You know, Cable?” Asked Wade, sounding amused. “That was the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.” 

“Nope. I called you an annoying ass,” Cable corrected, even as he found himself studying the soft smile playing on the lips of the fire-roasted, medium rare passenger beside him. 

“Mm, Nope. You said my ass was annoying. _And_ that you’d stay in this shit-hole of a time period just so I couldn’t get my hands on another of those mutie-stoppy collars and off my-“

Cable didn’t understand the sudden **urge** that lanced through him when he realized what it was Wade was _more_ than implying. The thought of seeing his new teammate- his new _partner_ dying once and for all all over again? There was no way in **hell**.

Before Cable knew it, he’d reached out and grabbed the chin that never stopped flapping, and by then it was too late to stop what it was his mostly human hindbrain had in mind. By the time he opened his eyes, he’d just about finished kissing a pair of dry, cracked, unmoisturized lips, and when the contact ended, Cable found himself gazing into a pair of vivid _caring_ mutant eyes. A hint of question in their shallow depths. 

“What? No tongue?” Wade asked with a breathless huff that only made Cable’s hindbrain want him **worse**. 

“Shut up and kiss me like you mean it,” the guy holding another man by the jaw managed before resealing a kiss he hadn’t known he’d been looking forward to for almost as long as he’d been annoyed by the weirdo in red. 

“Seriously, you two? I’m _right_ here.” Domino pointed out in a tone which clearly expressed annoyance. Kindly reminding Cable where they where, _when_ they where, and of the fact that they did indeed have company. 

The reminder ended up sparking a debate in the cab over the merits and demerits of public displays of affection and the levels of appropriateness of such when in close proximity to minors and others who were not explicitly okay with it already. Exactly the sort of debate that _never_ happened when Cable was from, but this **was** the dark ages, so he let them have their pseudo-philosophy for the time being. 

While everyone argued over the relative beauty or grossness of what they’d just witnessed Cable felt Wade leaning more and more of his not inconsiderable weight into his side, signifying something that Cable had never thought he’d see: the hyperactive adrenaline junkie was getting tired. Fading fast too if that yawn was any indication. 

As soon as Wade’s eyes closed, his new _willing_ body pillow had a moment to inspect his own feelings on the matter of their sudden and passionate kiss and within seconds found himself wishing he hadn’t. Because remembering that he still had a semi-working time machine with a whole charge left which he could probably somehow use to rescue Wade’s wife from her horrible, grizzly fate in this past’s past made him feel as if he’d just taken very strong advantage of the bereft guy’s state of suicidal grief. 

The thing that almost spooked Cable about it though, was the follow up train of thought that went something like, ‘So what? He’s mine now. His wife’s **long** gone and would _want_ him to be happy. Right?’ Yeah. Right. 

What she’d _want_ would be to not be dead. And by the looks of things that’s exactly what her husband wanted too. 

Cable had some hard thinking to do and a lengthy cab ride in which to do it. Though, he thought with a huff, deep down he already knew the answer he was inevitably going to settle on. But until he actually made the decision, he was going to _continue_ taking advantage of the whole ‘the guy who inexplicably claims to have feelings for me is passed out against my _whole body_ ’ thing and just enjoy it while it lasted. And maybe until he figured out how to fix the problem of having only charge enough for _one_ time jump. 

Which he paradoxically hoped was both as soon _and_ as far in the future as mutantly possible. Because having someone feel comfortable enough- having someone have enough _faith_ in you that they’ll just up and conk out curled up against you? Now that was worth savoring. 

Besides, that kiss had been hot as **shit**. No way Cable was letting _that_ go without a fight. Even though he knew he was gonna lose in the end. 

Stupid ‘moral compass’ sure as hell picked a crap-tastic time to come back online.

He’d just have to ignore it as long as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heehee, I think they’ve finally reached bestie status!


	7. Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, Cable gets invited to an X-Men meeting and Wade doesn’t. Cable makes the acquaintance of a certain doctor while he’s having ‘fun’ with the adults.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say about the great OndoriNaramaki that hasn’t already been said? Something _nice_ maybe? Nah, I’ll stick to the cold, calloused truth a little longer!  
>  (Just kidding: You’re a life saver Ondo!)

It was minutes past breakfast of their second day on school grounds when Cable got an invitation to join the X-Men for some sort of meeting.   
Via couriered letter.   
_Inside_ the mansion.   
Geez.

At least, he was pretty sure, the courier was a student at the school, so it wasn’t like they were throwing money away on something **completely** useless.   
And besides that, it was probably a ‘this should help you get ahold of your powers’ type of training related job, Cable figured. On account of the scorch marks left behind when the head of auburn pigtails hightailed it back out of the quickly clearing mess hall. 

It was over a minute of Wade complaining about several of the different, distinct, and hurtful ways in which the X-RoleModels continued their attempts to exclude and or distance him _specifically_ from them and their precious team, before the guy who’d eaten enough for two realized he was whining out loud and closed his trap with a decisive nod. 

“You should go. You never know, they could want your semen preserved so someday, when medical sciences have advanced, they can study it to figure out what exactly it is that makes you _so **hot**_.”

There was very little aside from blink Cable could do in the face of _that_ , so he blinked far slower than usual, and gave a solemn shake of his head.   
“Never gonna happen.”

“I don’t know: the folks who run this place are nucking futs, man. Take _this_ for example! Who serves country gravy in a crock?! Everyone knows you need a tiny spout thing to tip the delicious, fatty, white, flour based sauce out onto your biscuits!”

“Pretty sure that was _supposed_ to be where the table refilled the many, **many** gravy boats,” Cable pointed out. Holding up one of the funny little serving accessories as Wade looked up from where he was laying backwards and upside down off a chair. 

“Wha? But- Aw, man!”

“They would have too, if you hadn’t _started_ breakfast by dunking your face in it and yelling that it was ‘the perfect temperature’.”

“Guess next time, temperature will have to be a surprise then,” lamented a Wade who was somehow _not_ looking any closer to vomiting despite the fact that he was _still_ draped upside down off his chair.   
But, before Cable had a chance to say anything more about the importance of table manners when eating with company, Wade made an ‘Uh-oh’ face and began flailing all four limbs around, not stopping until he was right side up again, and when his head was above the table, out came what sounded like an uncomfortably guttural burp.   
“But, uh, yeah. You should _definitely_ go.”

And that was part of how Cable found himself at the guest seat of a giant-ass, probably solid oak, table wreathed in a majority of the world’s most respected and highly regarded mutants. Plus some tiny guy everybody was calling Logan. 

Now seated in the presence of historical greatness, Cable pretty much shut his trap and kept his peepers on ‘memorize’ mode as the cabal of world defenders went around in a circle doing introductions for _his_ benefit.   
When it was his turn, he just tried not to stutter. 

 

~

 

The meeting went straight through lunch, which a team of telekinesis compelled trolleys made sure the earth’s mightiest heroes—plus Cable and that short guy with the bad attitude—didn’t go without, and by that point, Cable had been invited to be an official reserve member of the strike and recovery team. And he’d accepted, once they’d gone through exactly what that _was_. 

Lunch itself, though rather brief, was treated as a perfect opportunity for a little stretch and a bit of friendly kibitzing. Which Cable considered himself to be absolute **shit** at, so he was glad when it wasn’t a whole pack of them descending on him, demanding in deceptively cheery tones to know every detail of his entire life story.   
It was just one of the most accomplished people at the table, a telepathic Dr. Jean Grey, hands busy with a plate filled with enough food to rival his own, who sidled up next to where he was standing, a bit away from the main schmoozing action, and then... just munched away in silence. 

Being just a pinch ‘telepath’ himself, Cable recognized the smooth maneuver as the lady with the doctorate and the brightest red hair he’d ever tried not to stare right at’s equivalent of an open invitation to chat.  
After a few long, indecisive moments, he realized that Dr. Grey hadn’t gotten where she was by being the type to breach the bonds of confidentiality, so he sucked up his stupid insecurities and let his obvious-as- _fuck_ tight shoulders relax. Then Cable took advantage of his first opportunity for psychic exertion in longer than he’d like to admit by sending the woman who was actually dressed for the occasion the mental equivalent of a childish poke in the arm. Which she, with a fork concealed smile, correctly took as permission to establish nonverbal communication. 

*Hello, Cable. Was there anything you’d like to talk about?* She thought straight into his mind. Mouth busy with an impressive chunk of exceptionally prepared lasagna. 

*...You’re a doctor of the mental/emotional stuff, right?*

*Psychology is among my degrees, it’s true,* she impulsed into his mind. Looking for the world as if the only thing taking up her attention was the heap of food she was just _starting_ to really dig into. 

Cable made space for a mental pause before refilling his own mouth with a **shovel** of rice and well seasoned chicken. Wanting to be sure he couldn’t accidentally say any of this stuff out loud.   
*Grief, maybe?*

*Who’s grief?*

*Mine.*

Dr. Grey nodded in a way that made it look, to anyone els, like she was just having difficulty swallowing her mouthful of mash. *Where would you like to begin?*

 

~

 

The ‘conversation’ lasted as long as the plates had food on them, and the two completely natural, nothing to be ashamed about tears Cable had shed through it all only added a little salt to the mashed potato side. And maybe a little catharsis to the chat. 

“Can I take the plate for you?” The first words Dr. Grey ‘spoke’ to Cable as she held out her empty hand. 

“Uh, yeah. Thanks, Doc,” was all Cable could think to say as he handed over his nearly spotless dish and fork. 

The answering, “Welcome,” communicated perfectly exactly _what_ Cable was ‘welcome’ for. And that he didn’t owe anyone a thing for it. 

 

~

 

It was approximately one speech about unity and world peace into their resumed meeting that Cable, belly full and mind more at ease than he’d felt it in... a while, began to feel a creeping sensation of unease. One he didn’t recognize. One he was pretty sure was connected, somehow, to guilt. 

Cable did his best to shrug off the shroud of black thoughts closing in around his conscious mind, threatening to shunt his ability to listen to what the head honcho sitting at one end of the table was still going strong about. 

Unfortunately for him, the feeling got worse and worse the longer the message of peace and brotherhood went on and by the time the speech giver paused for a sip of water Cable was pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that he’d spent most of the day palling around with a bunch of mutants who were on a mission to save the world from itself, instead of spending time with the one mutant who mattered **considerably** more to him.   
Figuring he _really_ needed to get around to doing something about his stupid, broken time slider ASAP, he ignored his impending guilt trip best he could and continued _forcing_ his ears into paying attention to what the cueball at the head of the table was going over. 

That is, until the moment he couldn’t listen any longer and he had to shake his head to try and clear some of the **heaviness** out of it. Which caught the attention of an expert of behavioral sciences who he’d been ‘talking’ with not so long ago. 

“You feel it too?” Asked Dr. Grey from her seat halfway down the table. A table that went **silent** the moment she opened her mouth. At Cable’s incredulous blink, the doctor with the flaming red hair went on. “I have a psychic suicide hotline of sorts I keep an eye on. I feel it if anyone on school grounds dips low enough.” Small murmurs started up as Dr. Grey closed her mouth and switched over to their psychic’s only, secret nonverbal language. *Seems you have a strong connection with Wade. And it seems he could use a friend right about-*

Before the good doctor could finish the sentence, Cable was out the giant-ass doors and halfway down the marble floored hallway. Following the feeling of hopelessness just as desperately as he fought not to let it effect his ability to function. For he knew that the depth of the grief he felt his mind terrified of being pulled down into would have immobilized him if he let it get its hooks in. 

If this was what Wade was feeling? He had to hurry. 

Pumping his arms hard as he could, legs flying at unsafe-for-the-halls-of-a-boarding-school speeds, Cable almost missed when the correct room rushed within reach.   
Flinging himself both inside the open doors and to an abrupt stop at the same time, he took in the sight of his self appointed boyfriend laying on a **coffee table** , crying himself straight into an early grave. 

Cable paused just a second and sturdied his mental defenses before affecting a relaxed posture and declaring his presence. After which the crashing waves of guilt, shame, and crushing, crushing loss which he knew weren’t completely his receded from his poor head entirely.   
He needed to handle that fucking time machine **now**. 

But first, he had a boyfriend who needed comforting. And he had just the massage oil for the job. 

 

~

 

“My favorite color is red, I prefer alphabet soup to non-alphabet soup, and yes, I _have_ always been this handsome. Just, a little more **conventionally** before-“

“You don’t say?” Cable asked, pushing a hint of doubt to the front of his tongue, where he was busy holding back a pleasured growl at the feeling of his boyfriend’s shoulder muscles unknotting underneath his organic hand. 

“I _do_ say, and I’m not lying when I say it,” Wade assured. Every ounce of bravado that should have been there, present and accounted for. “Just ask Ness-“ Then the guy’s visible eye went wide and the warm, fuzzy happiness of their private alone time vanished in a blink. 

“You really miss her, don’t you?” Cable asked. Against his more... selfish wishes. Pausing his massage for the ‘serious shit’ part of their evening. 

“Yeah,” Wade started with a big sigh. One Cable felt quite easily from where he was straddling the guy’s bare waist. To better get at his pleasingly muscled upper back. “Yeah, we were going to-“ A small frown cut off his words that time, and Cable knew he wasn’t going to be hearing the rest of that sentence until such time as his masseuse turned massagee _wanted_ him to.   
“We made each other happy.” Confided the man who’d only minutes ago slathered Cable up in luxurious, warming oils and proceeded to **unmake** and rebuild him from the ligaments out. Voice morose, to say the least.  
To say the _most_ , poor mutant sounded like he was two seconds away from death by pure, unadulterated grief alone. 

Cable had to shut his mouth to keep from blurting his dirty, harder and harder to keep secret. Swallowing a pang of guilt before he could trust himself to respond properly.   
“I’m glad you were happy.” 

“Yeah, but,” Wade said, eyes going wide as he seemed to realize something, “I’m happy _now_!” Then, somehow, even with Cable’s solid weight resting on his middle, the mutant getting his massage did one of the weirdest rolls the guy from the future’d ever seen and suddenly, Cable was straddling his boyfriend’s well defined abs instead. 

“What the f-“

“I’m happy **now** , Cabey-babey,” Wade said, cutting him off with a look so sincere, there wasn’t any doubting it. Then, he reached up with a hand who’s skin was mottled by his past, and cupped the side of Cable’s face in a way that _screamed_ , ‘I care.’   
“I’m happy with **you** and I’m sorry if it _ever_ seems otherwise.” 

Cable stared, stared down at the eyes brimming with adoration, and felt his face leaning into the _still_ slightly massage-oily hand. Wishing he could bring himself to do more than turn his head and plant a kiss on the center of the broad, strong palm. But, with what he had yet to do about his broken time slider? There was no way in hell he was taking any more advantage of Wade’s grief than he already had. 

So Cable gave his boyfriend a cheeky smirk and took the hand against his face in his own hand instead. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he assured as he began kneading the space between the metacarpals. Once again holding back a pleasured growl when the man who’d claimed him as ‘his’ moaned in appreciation. 

Yowza. Cable had it **bad**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did someone say ‘erotic massage‘? I’m pretty sure it was Wade but Cable’s not shy either, so they let us get a peek at how that went. Anyone glad they did? ;D


	8. The Time Traveler’s Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cable gets pulled away on his first X-Men mission! Wade’s not invited so Cable’s just a mite distracted hoping his red annoyance will be okay when he gets back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s hard to believe how long OndoriNaramaki has been helping with this fic. Maybe someday they’ll even help _improve_ it! ;D  
>  Thanks for being an awesome beta!

“Hey, earth to Cable!”

“What?” A slightly startled Cable asked of the surly Negasonic Teenage Warhead sitting closer to him than anyone else on the X-Jet. 

“Space-case, you hear what the boss just said?” Demanded his third-his-age seat buddy as she jerked her head towards the front of the ship, where Cable directed his eyes in time to see Storm retaking her seat and buckling in.  
“Or you too busy worrying over your needy boyfriend to pay attention?”

Cable couldn’t help the way his eyes squinted just a little as he tamped down a powerful urge to growl at the youth and her crass assessment. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. S’why I asked Yukio to watch out for Wade while we’re out saving these kids’ sorry lives,” said the surly individual between the absentminded poppings of her mouthful of bubblegum. Cable's eyes widened a hair when the words set in.  
“Mostly so she’d have something to do other than worry,” she added. Then, bopping him on the knee, the teen grinned and finished with a wry, “You’re welcome, gramps.”

“I don’t have grandchildren-“

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“-but I _am_ grateful.” This time, _his_ words seemed to impress, as the Warhead’s eyes widened ever so slightly. Kid had a good poker face. “Wade’s been...”

“I know. I was there when he bit off his own fucking _tongue_ and you violated his mouth to save his life.” the Warhead added with a cross, half-pout half-glower. 

“He was crushed over the death of his wife-

“Fiancée.”

“-and I feel like I’m taking advantage of the situation like a complete **ass**.” Several suddenly ‘high alert’ heads flipped in his direction as Cable realized he’d gotten-

“Loud much? You’re _just_ like that annoying clown: **total** drama queens.” Then the kid looked him in the eye and added, “You’re perfect for each other.”

“But-“

“Now what about the established **fact** of you being a ‘complete ass’?” 

Cable sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before figuring there wasn’t anyone _his_ age around to talk to anyway, so he might as well spill while he felt like it. Otherwise he’d probably just end up pushing Wade farther and farther away until something snapped between them. And he really didn’t want to be the one to break the poor guy’s heart the second time.  
“I’ve been trying to figure out a way to save his Fiancée-“

“Vanessa.”

“-and bring her here without destroying reality as we know it.” Looking down at his unexpected confidant, Cable gave another sigh and revealed the ace he’d been keeping up his proverbial sleeve this whole time. “I have a time machine. Problem is, it’s broke and only has enough charge to send me through time **once**. No return trip and definitely no tagalongs.” Cable felt his face harden as he thought again of how _wrong_ it was to keep that information from the man he’d grown so... so very, very fond of.  
Hiding things and lying was never a good place to start a relationship. 

“That’s easy,” Cable looked up sharply at the derisive words. The Warhead cocked her head in a wry, challenging way before saying more. “Fix it.”

Cable rolled his eyes to the bulkhead and huffed a desperate sort of laugh. “I’m not a chronal technician; I could blow away all life in the tristate area if I fuck it up. Or, the tri- _city_ area, anyway,” he corrected with an unhappy rub at his eyes. 

“I’m a genius. Let me have a look at it.” Said in a matter of fact way that had Cable doing some major eyebrow raising. 

“No joke. It’s half the reason the teaches at school don’t get on my case about my ‘attitude’,” she informed with a pair of air-quotes. 

“What’s the other half?” Cable asked. Not able to help himself. 

“I _like_ to think it’s because they know I could annihilate them easier than breathing on them, but the party line is that they’re there to help foster creativity and individuality. So take your pick.”

“Huh,” Cable hummed, weighing his options a few moments before retrieving his ‘ace’ from his utility bag. He still paused to feel the cold heft of it before finally making up his mind and handing it over to the _child_ holding out a hand in _almost_ concealed eagerness.  
Like he’d thought: good poker face. 

He watched as the Warhead studied the tiny device with a sort of single-mindedness he’d rarely seen on someone who walked around in all yellow. Not that there was anything inherently wrong with yellow. 

“Yeah, I can fix it,” said with such confidence that Cable had to double-take to be sure he’d heard correctly. “My tools are back home though, so-“

“How long would it take you?” Cable cut her off. Accidentally. 

“Like, five minutes. Tops,” the self proclaimed genius said, handing back the device with fingers that obviously didn’t _want_ to. Then, when Cable realized the inherent danger of letting _anyone_ tinker with such an item and sucked in a breath to say so, she cut him off with a knowing shake of the head.  
“If it _did_ blow, I could contain the explosion. I practically eat those for breakfast anyway.”

Cable nodded as he put the time machine back where it belonged and sighed as he was _finally_ awarded the opportunity to go back to his preferred way of spending a flight: silently staring off into space.  
Before long though, his neighbor gave him a poke in the organic arm. Apparently not quite finished with him yet. 

“Look, Yukio’s the most kind, strong, beautiful, _understanding_ soul I know. So, at least until we get back, if **anyone** can keep your boyfriend from offing himself- or from _trying_ to...” The bright yellow suited teen ended with a hard stare right into Cable’s eyes. In lieu of any more _words_.  
A mutant after his own heart. 

“He’s in good hands,” Cable supplied with a nod of understanding. 

“Yeah. So get your head in the game and let’s focus on the mission. Zurich, remember?” Ordered Cable’s younger, senior teammate. 

“Traveling circus, forcing mutant children to perform in exchange for _almost_ humane treatment and living conditions?” 

The Warhead nodded at the summary and gave him a thumbs up. “Besides, the sooner we get through in Switzerland-“

“The sooner we get back to the X-Manor-“

“And to our... _people_ ,” she intoned, indicating with just her voice that ‘people’ was some sort of code for ‘girlfriend and boyfriend’.

“Yeah. Our people.”

The Warhead blew and popped an especially impressive gum bubble, then bopped Cable on the knee once more before turning her head toward the front of the X-Jet to scan the progress screens. 

They were almost there. Which meant they were also almost halfway _back_.  
Cable bit his lip, willing the jet to slip through the air streams just that last bit faster. 

After all, there was someone waiting for him stateside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, Negasonic. Anyone ever thought she could be so thoughtful? Well, Yukio did, but anyone _else_?  
>  Cable’s just as shocked as the rest of us.


	9. One Is The Loneliest Number

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The suspense, the drama, the _horror_!  
>  Naw, but this one does get just a hint sad, y’all. What with the time slider being fixed and all. Poor, responsible Cable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t think there exist words nice enough to describe OndoriNaramaki. So I’m going to take the wise advice of Thumper’s mom and dad and not say anything at all. Better safe than sorry after all!  
> (Thanks Ondo! You’re beta-ing skills... well, maybe I should heed my own advice there. ;D Just kidding! You’re amazing!)

The first thing Cable wanted to do, soon as his boots hit X-Estate soil, was find Wade and wrap him up in an _almost_ bone crushing hug. He knew Wade wouldn’t mind if he accidentally cracked a couple of the regenarant’s ribs, but Cable also knew that he couldn’t let himself do such a thing just because his boyfriend could be all better faster than Cable could try and kiss the hurt away. After all: he was hoping he could do something mentally _healing_ for Wade, not do something to cause him _to_ heal. Big difference. 

He wanted to walk right up to Wade, stare into his eyes and ask how he was; make sure he was doing alright and lock their lips tight regardless the answer.  
But, looking off in the direction of their room, Cable felt his oh-so empty hands close into fists as his feet led him off to instead follow the Warhead to where she kept her ‘tools’. 

They had some repairing to do. 

 

~

 

“Aaaaand... done,” declared the mechanical genius spinning in her chair to introduce Cable to a freshly repaired temporal transportation machine. 

“Wow. You were right. Five minutes,” Cable said as he reached out to inspect the work of his newest teammate. 

“With seconds to spare,” Negasonic snipped in a distinctly proud sort of ‘what do I care how long it took?’

Cable hefted the item, realizing for the first time just how heavy the small thing was. What it was about to do for his... for Wade. Who probably wouldn’t have further need of his closeness nor his affections once Cable’s next mission was complete. After all, how could he possibly compare to the miraculous reappearance of _anyone’s_ long lost fiancée?

The man who suddenly felt fifty pounds heavier looked the yellow suited teen —who was currently trying not to preen in her swivel chair— straight in the eyes and gave her a nod.  
“Thank you. I- I didn’t know what I was gonna do-“

“Eh, us gays gotta stick together, right Gramps?” The Warhead asked, rising from her chair to thump him good naturedly on the chest before moving to exit the room.  
“Well, have fun disrupting the time/space continuum. Which I’m sure you’re _trained_ for,” Negasonic said, before pausing to lean on the doorjamb. “Yukio’s officially off babysitting duty, so _I_ have a date to make. Good luck with... everything.”

“Thanks,” the only thing Cable could think to say to the scrunched, ‘ew, old people love’ face as his newest... maybe-friend took off for the undisclosed location of her rendezvous. With the youngster who’d kept _his_ soon-to-be rendezvous company while he’d been away.  
He hoped the two had a nice reunion. 

With a sigh, Cable stored the tiny machine that just might soon bring down the best thing that’d happened to his sad excuse for a social life in _forever_ , and made for his room. And his boyfriend. ‘Cause he didn’t even need to ask to know that’s exactly where he’d find him. 

“I’m back,” Cable said as he stepped in their room and saw Wade lying on the middle of their bed. Where only the night before, Wade’s hands, stronger yet _far_ more gentle than Cable could have guessed, had melted the knots and bruising tension out of his back to the point where he couldn’t **remember** the last time he’d felt so relaxed. So content.

Cable couldn’t remember the last time someone had flipped themselves off a bed and _run_ up to him with an expression so open and caring as the one on Wade’s face either.  
Right before he felt himself taken into an embrace the strength of which he’d only felt once before. In a prison transport. By someone he’d stabbed for the thoughtful gesture.  
He could do better this time. Wade deserved it. _He_ deserved-

Wait. _He_ deserved it? _Cable_ deserved... **this**? This ‘please don’t ever leave again’ embrace and the head snuggled close to his? 

Cable reeled with the slew of brand new thoughts, realizing that he hadn’t demanded, nor begged, nor suggested, nor even _asked_ for **any** of this. Hadn’t even known he’d _wanted_ it until Wade had opened his eyes with his kindness and his never say die attitude and of course, the alluring contours of his exceptional ass. Which Cable was more tempted than ever to just **feel up** ; lose himself in the tactile exploration of; stamp his name on in indelible- 

Wade had been the one to claim _him_. That **meant** something to Cable. He only hoped that it meant enough to the man who obviously wasn’t letting go anytime soon. Because, if it didn’t... Cable wasn’t sure what he’d do.  
Cry maybe. 

On a spur of the moment impulse, Cable reached down, bypassing that utterly tempting, utterly accessible ass, to hook his hands behind the set of legs that weren’t his own and hitched them up around his pelvis.  
They didn’t quite make it all the way to his waist. Considering he wasn’t as tall as the _large_ man who’d claimed him for his own. 

Now with a set of legs working to crush him with love, Cable had to work to keep balanced as he walked the two of them over to the bed. Where he flopped down right on top of his... at least for a little while longer boyfriend. Reminding him again of the prison transport wherein Wade had asked for his number and kept him from murdering a teenager all while exercising care enough to not maim him.  
If that wasn’t love... Cable didn’t know what love _was_. 

But, Cable _did_ know that there was someone else out there, in that slippery, confounding thing known as the space/time continuum, who Wade had loved before _he’d_ come around. Someone who Wade had agreed to love, cherish, and honor until death parted them. And this poor man squeezing the last ounces of air out of him, perhaps in response to some deep seated fear that he’d be losing his ‘cyborg’ too, had no **clue** what possibilities the Warhead had moments ago opened up for them. 

As Wade loosened his ‘crushing is caring’ hold, Cable relished in the feel of their bodies squished together. And allowed himself to wish this —the two of them happy and _together_ — could be forever. But, he couldn’t continue the charade when he knew who he could save. That he could save the person who could make Wade happier than he could: the woman who was liable to break his arguably-thankfully _not_ techno organic heart. 

Cable took a moment, or two, or maybe three, to raise himself up and really **look** at the weirdo who’d reopened his heart to more than loss and pain and bitterness. The mutant who’d withstood, forgiven, and potentially even _enjoyed_ every love tap, nasty look, and broken bone Cable’d given him. The one who’s eyes were threatening to leak because he thought Cable was trying to ‘break up’ with him.  
The one who’s cheek he couldn’t stop himself from gentling smooth of those damnable worry lines, and who’s lips were just too much- too _his_ to resist any longer. 

The man from the future heard a small noise of shocked pleasure as he lowered his body back down flush against his boyfriend’s. He **felt** the next one when he gifted himself one last, tender, beautiful kiss. Before breaking the horrible, wonderful news to the mutant who’d put a smile back in his heart. 

Cable watched Wade’s face change from ‘you _are_ my world’ to ‘what the fuck did you just say about my **original** world?’ and tried not to cringe at the suddenness of it; the stark contrast from one moment to the next. 

“How- how would that work? She’s-Ness’s been... _gone_ for **weeks**.”

But he was doing this because it was the right thing to do and he was doing it _for_ Wade because seeing that sweet, sweet weirdo stuck in full mourning made his _soul_ ache. 

So Cable braced his mind for the sudden schism that might very well be waiting for him at the end of this time jump; a breaking up of something that had just begun to fill his life with a greater meaning. He reminded himself that, at least for **this** moment in time, Wade was still his. His and only his. 

Bolstered and feeling an undeniable need for closeness, Cable reached out with a hand that screamed ‘mine’ and pulled Wade **close**.  
“Body slide by two.” Cable forced the words out and a pair of strong, muscle hardened, _caring_ arms wrapped him in a protective embrace as the X-Manor melted away in the all too familiar way all things did when one skips space/time. 

Then, Cable shivered as he _felt_ a desperate, “I love you,” whispered **intimately** into his ear as the void of non-reality swallowed them up. 

_Fuck_ his boyfriend was hot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. He’s right. His boyfriend _is_ hot. ;D


	10. Meeting New People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cable just brought a committed couple back together. One of them from the ostensible dead. How is he gonna react when he sees just how _happy_ Wade is now that he and Vanessa are back together?  
>  And how is Vanessa going to react to having a third, hot as shit person in the room?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guessed it: This thing’s got OndoriNaramaki’s fingerprints _all_ over it. In a _good_ way. Heh heh. ;D

Vanessa wasn’t quite what Cable’d been expecting. After all, he’d never so much as seen a picture of her and so he found himself surprised by how very… ‘civilian’ she appeared.  
No large scars, no towering physique, no titanium exoskeleton, and no hatred in her eyes when Wade introduced him as his ‘accidental boyfriend’.

No, instead ‘intrigue’ would be a far better word to describe the way that the woman he had just met’s eyes looked him up and down before glueing themselves back to her fiancé.

They were back in their room, in the X-Manor, had just gotten through basic introductions and some pleasant repartee which had ended with Wade asking about remote controlled cameras and which, more than anything, had left Cable confused enough that all he could think about was how he didn’t want to look at the bed. For fear that his expression would catch someone’s attention and somehow sour the beautiful reunion taking place not four feet from him.  
Which was extremely silly when he thought about it, considering the two were a little _preoccupied_ with each other’s lips to be paying attention to much else at the moment. 

But even so... he still didn’t want to look at it.

“Oh, baby, I feel like I **miss** you. Even though I was technically never gone to begin with,“ Vanessa said as she broke their kiss and wrapped her arms around _her_ mutant’s neck. 

“Baby, I understand **completely** ,” Wade said in a husky voice. Arms wasting no time in encircling his human’s waist.

Cable watched and though the tenderness in the room was _palpable_ —he could practically cut it with a knife—, all he felt was a growing sense of loss. Like he was watching something he cared for **deeply** dying and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.  
Therefore, for his own health, it was about time he excused himself from the room and allowed the reunion to continue in privacy. 

“Baby?”

“Yeah, Ness?”

“Did you mention something about ‘massages’?” Vanessa asked with eyebrows raised in a _very_ suggestive way. 

“Uh, I _can_ , if you want me to?” Wade asked in a tone steeped in pure confusion.  
At the nod Cable saw Vanessa give him, Wade loosened and retightened his arms where they rested around her middle, in a reassuring way, and open his mouth. “Cable has warming oil and we gave each other the _hottest_ massages last night.” 

Cable felt his eyes go wide at the blurted admission and he looked to Vanessa to gauge her response. For her part, she looked both expectant and curious.

“There was tongue.”

At that, Cable closed his eyes in mortification. After all, if there _had_ been a chance of him being allowed to continue a friendly association with the couple, that statement, as ridiculous and vague as it was, had likely erased all goodwill the wonderful woman in Cable’s _ex_ boyfriend’s arms-

“There _better_ have been.”

The shock of hearing those words took a second to wear off, but soon as it did, Cable was scouring Vanessa’s face for their meaning. 

“Because I’m demanding that same treatment. ‘Cause getting shot, pretending to be dead, _and_ time traveling to the future all in one evening? Estoy cansada!” Hm. Come to think of it, Cable was tired too. “Plus, I’ve got a **massive** kink in this shoulder.” 

“Don’t worry, babe, I’m on it,” said the mutant formerly known as Cable’s as he swept his long lost lover off her feet and started for the bed.  
Which Cable still didn’t want to look at. 

“Ooh, I’m **loving** the enthusiasm, _but_ ,” Vanessa said, the last syllable purred in a way that made Wade pause. Fiancée laden arms inches from the mattress cover. “I have a feeling this is gonna take some _major_ unkinking.” 

Then, she tilted her head Cable’s way and he had to blink when their eyes met. Confused when he thought he saw something akin to an invitation in her baby browns. 

“You’re gonna need _that_ guy’s fucking jacked hands working you over if we’re gonna smooth out this stubborn, _hard_ , **kink**... in my shoulder.” 

The way Vanessa’s mouth drew closer and closer to her fiancé’s as she spoke, and the way she maintained the eye contact between herself and Cable— who himself was now deciphering the look as just a hint ‘come over and play, big boy’—, put just a bit more meaning into her words. A meaning which paused the massive void in Cable’s bruised heart from ripping any farther, the feeling of losing a special someone put suddenly on hold and making him want to... to...  
He actually wasn’t sure what, but he knew he wanted- if his potentially-a-little-less-‘ex’-than-he’d-been-thinking boyfriend and his fiancée would allow... 

Cable wanted to stay. _With_ them. Indefinitely. 

“What’re you waiting for? My shoulder hurts,” Vanessa said with a dash of playful command as she reached a hand out towards him. Beckoning Cable with a wave of obviously non-combatant fingers. 

“You heard her: better get your cybernetic ass over here before I pull something,” Wade enticed over his shoulder as he laid Vanessa out on the bed and helped her get cozy. Which, it turned out, included removing her romper length sweater. With a switchblade. Which _she’d_ pulled from **God** knows where. 

Cable couldn’t believe what he was hearing- _especially_ not coming, as it was, from the woman he had been **sure** was going to replace him.  
Well, he could believe the absolutely... **orgasmic** _sounds_ she was making, knowing just how amazing a massage from Wade really was, but he was still wrapping his head around the rest of it. Like the part where she’d invited him to join in the now obviously _erotic_ massage party. 

The thing that finally broke Cable from his uncomprehending stupor, was the sound of another shirt being tossed to the floor.  
Then the image of his hopefully-once-again boyfriend flexing his back in the motion of a rolling wave as he positioned his body over a new section of Vanessa’s. Which prompted another _**obscene**_ noise from the woman receiving the massage of a lifetime.  
Which, inexplicably, made Cable want to draw—wrench, if he had to—the equivalent noise from _his_ mutant as well. 

“I’ve got the warming oil,” is the last thing Cable remembers saying before the remainder of their evening hazed out into little more than a lusty, _adult_ noise filled, **pleasurable** , memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh. Vanessa’s right when she says she has some **kinks**. Good thing too. For her _as well as_ Cable.  
>  Wade’s never gonna get over this. ;D


	11. We’ll Always Have Harajuku

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This, the fateful final chapter in this Cable/Deadpool series, has been brought to you by Horny On Main Pictures, in association with Suppressed Aromantic Desires Inc., and a little help from I Don’t Usually Curse Studios.   
>  We hope you enjoy the show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure whether it will be the last time I get this opportunity, so I would like to take this moment to say what a pleasure it was to work with the wonderful OndoriNaramaki...  
>  I would _like_ to, but I’m sure **all** the pleasure, was _theirs_! XD  
>  (Sorry, couldn’t resist! You’re amazing Ondo! Can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve done to help bring Cable and Wade, in a _readable_ , form to the masses!)

With a gut deep groan, Cable pulled himself from the utterly _world_ -endingly relaxing depths of his practically **boiling** Japanese ‘bath’.  
‘Bath’ because he’d never had a bath like _that_ one before. One you were supposed to bathe _before_ and sink down into slowly as it threatened to boil you alive. Though, if you got yourself all the way down in it, and those things were **deep** for a ‘bath’, you were in for a practically religious experience. 

That’s how Wade had described it anyway, and for once: the hyperbolic description was right on the mark. 

Reaching for a hotel provided towel and catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, Cable realized that the techno organic planes of his upper body were already dry.  
Hm. He hadn’t thought about it, but metal evaporated water almost instantaneously if you got it hot enough. 

He’d have to show Wade sometime. 

The rest of him was also starting to dry now that it was out of the simmering pool and in the humid air of the spacious bathroom. He barely even needed the towel, except that he’d forgotten his change of clothes out in the sleeping part of their hotel room and he didn’t want Wade getting _too_ fired up when they had such an important job to handle first thing in the early morning.  
Fucking Yakuza and their early morning schedules. 

Making sure the towel was secure around his waist, Cable pushed the door open and stealthed his way to where his clothes were, laid out in a neat pile and simply forgotten when he’d been invited to try the Japanese tub. By the guy laying on the _giant_ bed in the middle of the room, cellphone cupped in both hands and a good excuse as to why _he_ didn’t want to use the tub right after Cable’s great ‘honor’ of ‘going first’: The scalding hot water didn’t do well with his skin. Reminded him of when it had all burned. 

Cable was glad the haunted look on his husband’s face had dissipated when he’d agreed to try what sounded like an absolute torture session to be the judge of himself. Turns out, he’d do it again. 

“Oh my God, guess what’s behind you right now?” Cable heard asked by the woman he had a tentative romantic attachment with. Her voice coming clear through Wade’s cellphone and causing Cable to pause in his mission of not-being-spotted-until-he-had-the-chance-to-get-dressed and look over.  
How’d she seen him anyhow?

“Uh, lemme guess: A member of the Yakuza about to slit my throat with a razor sharp sushi blade?”

“What?” Came Ness’s confused reply, just before her eyes met with Cable’s and the two of them shared a moment of sympathetic eye contact. 

“Thanks for warning me, babe, but you don’t need to let some low life interrupt our call. After all, would only take a couple seconds for me to get the knife from my assailant and carve a nice sashimi right out of their-“

“No, Wade, sweetie, it’s your hot as _fuck_ husband in nothing but a towel giving the two of us **the** hottest eye fuck I’ve ever _seen_.” Cable’s eyes widened as Ness spoke, surprised by the compliment and her assessment of his attention to their phone call. He hadn’t thought he was being intrusive, but he _did_ love it when the married couple got domestic with each other. Made him feel... happy. Especially when they invited him to join in. Ness was thoughtful like that too. 

His thoughts were cut off when a mutant he hadn’t noticed perform a rolling tuck and leap off the enormous ‘honeymooner’ bed—it was part of their cover—landed right in front of him. Execution and landing perfect even though he was still on the phone. 

“Well, me and mini me are getting the feeling there’s a cyborg around here somewhere who’s starting to get lonely,” Wade said, smiling wide at the giggle that came through his phone speaker at his joking. 

“Alright, babe, have a great night and just remember: anything hot as _hell_ happens, I get the exclusive inside scoop.”

“Oh, you _know_ I can never wait to tell you all about what Cable and I get up to,” Wade assured with a giggle of his own. 

“Yeah, that’s one reason I _enjoy_ it so much, babe,” Ness reminded, the tone of her voice suggesting that the word ‘enjoy’ was not quite strong enough to do justice to her true levels of pleasure at the prospect of yet another erotic tale of her husband’s time off on a couple’s hit and or rescue job. 

Cable watched as Wade bit his own bottom lip and wished Ness a good night, then stowed his phone and lifted his eyes to engage Cable’s in an intimate little stare down. 

“So, that towel there ‘cause you’re feeling shy, or did you just not want to make things too easy for me?” Wade asked with a strong eyeridge wiggle. 

“Neither. We have work in the morning and I thought-“

“Thought I’d put work before the emotional needs of my one and only husband? How big a dick do you think I _am_?” Wade asked as he took a moment to give Cable a good looking over. 

“Well...” Cable said. Suggestively. Glancing down to Wade’s pijama’d crotchal region. 

“I asked how big a dick you think I _am_ , not how big a dick you think I _have_. Geez, get your mind out of the gutter,” the guy who was stepping close and wrapping a tender arm around Cable’s waist teased. Making the guy in nothing but a towel chuckle. 

That was one of the things that Cable loved about his husband: man knew how to make him laugh. And how to make him feel special. The way he was starting to feel right about then, what with his unclothed body being pulled into a warm embrace and his organic hand taken in a playfully possessive grasp. 

“Let’s tango, marido,” suggested Wade from where he was nuzzling their heads together. 

“How ‘bout a waltz?” Counter suggested a Cable who’d just had all his muscles turned to pudding by a boiling Japanese bathtub and didn’t feel like tempting fate with a Latin cardio dance routine. 

“Hm, partial to the old three-four signature, eh?”

“What?”

“Oh, never took music theory, I see,” Wade smirked into Cable’s cheek, where he nibbled gently at the stubble starting along his peppering sideburns. Reminding him he was in need of a shave. 

“What the hell?”

“Ooh, you don’t even know what music theory _is_? Don’t have music in the future? I feel bad for all the starving musicians-“

“We have music, just, I didn’t think you knew music-“

“Better than you do? Sweetie, I know we’ve been married almost a year, but there are still a **lot** of things you don’t know about me,” Wade said, sneaking his hand south to cop a feel of Cable’s towel covered ass cheek. 

“Like the fact that you’re incorrigible?” Cable quipped, indulging himself and copping a corresponding, pijama covered feel of his own while the opportunity presented itself.  
He _loved_ the way Wade shivered whenever he did that. 

“Look who’s talking, Mr. Raging Hormones,” Wade said as he pushed his body against Cable’s with enough force that the guy with the wet hair had to take a good full step back to keep his balance. Chuckling when his barely damp back went flush with the bedroom wall. 

Not letting go his handful of hard yet supple ass, Cable indulged in another of his favorite pastimes. **Loving** the soft, appreciative moan it got him when he took a tender nibble at the sensitive region right over Wade’s jugular.  
Cable barely held in a moan of his own when he switched methods, sucking hard enough to give the skin a light purple hickie, and got bucked _flusher_ against the wall for his troubles. 

Wade practically melted against him after that, his breathing erotically ragged as Cable re-marked the quick to heal skin. The man doing the marking both enjoying and resenting the way his husband’s regenerative factor disappeared the evidence of his ministrations as he moved methodically down the thoughtfully, _purposefully_ exposed neck.  
Darn dirty deviant _knew_ his weaknesses.

Eventually, Wade managed to catch breath enough to speak. “Hey, um, Cabey baby?”

“Yeah?” Cable grumbled from where his mouth was getting _into_ working at the stretch of muscle between Wade’s neck and shoulder; the scent of his lover’s skin alone luring him in **hard**. 

“I think your eye’s glowing. Doesn’t it usually only do that when something bad’s about to-“ the words cut off as Cable shoved Wade suddenly down and to one side. The lost and confused look it put in his husband’s eyes and the subsequent pang of guilt he felt over the action hurting him far more than the pang he felt from his organic shoulder.  
The one with the throwing star sticking out of it in an almost comical, macabre sort of way. 

Wade was on his feet in an instant, face hard as he addressed the seemingly empty room at large. “That _better_ have been meant for me!”

“It was aimed between your vertebrae. For your spinal cord. Only got me because I didn’t move fast enough. Distracted,” Cable chastised himself, knowing that if he’d just been paying _attention_ -

“Shh, babe,” Wade said, coming close to inspect the damage. A worry line furrowing deep between his brow ridges. “I was just as distracted as you. Otherwise, I would have done _this_!” 

Cable felt the warning system in his eye flare to life the same instant that something black came spinning through the air toward them, only to be snatched by a faster-than-the-eye flick of the arm by the quickest mutant Cable had ever had the pleasure of meeting. And marrying. 

Then, the two of them on full alert, Wade’s head twitched and it was obvious he’d pinpointed their hidden assailant. So, with a windup that bunched muscles Cable could _see_ through the full sleeved pijama top, Wade let it rip.

“Take that, fucker!” Cable’s ears rang with both the declaration of vengeance and the screech of the throwing star tearing past the ceiling and straight into a metal air vent. Which screamed in alarm and promptly began oozing blood. Human blood.  
When the vent followed that up with some gurgling and a few desperate scrabbling noises, Wade threw a second star and, on account of his excellence in everything sharpshooting, _that_ did the trick.  
“And **that**!”

Hm. But where’d he gotten a second- Oh, right, Cable thought as he glanced over to where the pointy hunk of metal was no longer sticking out of his shoulder, the guy with the mutant speed had reached a blind hand behind himself and plucked the star from his roomy’s flesh. Faster than Cable’d been able to register.  
Ouch. 

Wade’s hands went akimbo and he scoffed at the _now_ somewhat exposed air vent. “Showed that punk who’s boss, right, Cable- Oh, geez! You’re bleeding!” Then, seemingly on instinct, having caught sight of the nice red trickle starting down the shorter of them’s front, Wade whipped the towel off from around Cable’s hips and pressed it, in the form of a wadded up ball, against the puncture wound.

To which, Cable breathed in on a hiss, both at the sudden chill assaulting his bottom half and the fresh sting from his newest, soon-to-be scar. 

“Fuck, sorry- Sorry ‘bout that, babe. It’s just... I’ve never seen you get hurt before. Kinda scared me.” 

“Welcome to my world.” Cable said, watching as Wade braced the back of the shoulder he was applying pressure to. So it didn’t have to dig into the wall for support. “I have to watch _you_ ‘get hurt’ all the time.”

“ _Completely_ different: I bounce right back. Every time,” reasoned the guy wearing the most persistent worry face Cable’d seen since the day they’d gone to the hospital to have Cher delivered.  
Thankfully, the birth had gone smoothly and the bouncing baby was healthy and happy in her multi-parented home.  
Far as anyone could tell. Sure smiled a lot, if that was a good indicator. 

Cable let a smile reach his face, despite the fact that he’d essentially just been stabbed, and raised his non-organic hand to place it carefully over Wade’s. On the towel that was pressed against his shoulder just a couple, nearly crushing times harder than it needed to be.  
“Yeah? Well I ‘bounce right back’ too,” he reassured, while gently _prying_ Wade’s hand away from his ‘starting to go numb here’ shoulder. 

“But-“

“See? Already stopped bleeding,” Cable said with just a hint of pride. And understanding.  
Then his eye started glowing again. 

“How many?” Asked Wade, in his ‘some bastard’s going _down_ ’ voice. 

“Four outside the window and five about to knock on the-“

“House keeping!” Came a pleasant voice from the door. Preceded by a firm knock. 

“I _knew_ I heard the pitter patter of assholes,” Wade quipped as he gave the staunched puncture wound one more worried look. 

“I take the punks, you take the swashbucklers?” Cable suggested, pointing to the door then the window respectively. 

“Huh?”

“Guns, swords,” Cable said, pointing again. 

“Ooh, I’ve always wanted to test my katana against another sword wielder!”

“That’s what I thought,” Cable deadpanned, reaching down for the all but forgotten pile of clothes by his foot.

“No time for pants, silly; these Walking Dead mother fuckers are busting in _now_ ,” Wade said with glee as the door and the window both shattered with the onslaught of a **very** forced entry. 

Hm, thought Cable as he pulled up his shield and bounced a slew of bullets right back at the numb-sculls busting through the doorframe, walking around in the nude like this reminded him of porn. And thinking of porn reminded him of the novel way in which Cher had been conceived.  
“Hey, Wade?” Cable asked as he roundhoused some sorry sucker in the face. 

“Yeah, babe?” Wade asked to the sound of an entire, _definitely_ Yakuza arm hitting the floor. Without its owner. 

“Think Ness’ll like this story?”

“Uh, might wanna leave out this part,” Wade cautioned to the sound of someone losing a head to his swords. 

Cable hummed at the answer he’d been expecting. “Think it’s time for some home movies then?” 

“Oh _fuck_ yeah! Now I _know_ what we’re doing the **moment** we get home!”

So Cable and Wade made quick work of the ruffians losing pieces of themselves all over the nice hotel room, then turned to face each other in an unconscious hope that no further injuries had taken place.  
Breathing a sigh of relief when the worst that had happened to either appeared to be that they’d almost broken a sweat. 

Falling back into relaxation mode, Cable asked the most pertinent question he could find. If not the most obvious. “What about the bodies?”

“Eh, we’ll just say the room was like this when we got here,” Wade breezed, wiping his katana clean on some no-longer-living member of Japanese organized crime’s jacket. 

“Really? Covered in decapitated Yakuza and-“

“Yeah, I’m sure they’ve heard worse,” Wade said with a dismissive wave of one hand. Storing his blades with the other weapons. 

“Like what?”

“Like...”

“That’s what I thought,” Cable said with a smirk when the guy who at least had pj’s on couldn’t think up any ‘worse’ scenarios. “We should report it to the staff as a break in: These two opposing groups barged in and fucking killed each other. All over the Goddamn carpet.”

“Well,” Wade started with a sigh, “it’s better’n anything I got.”

“Besides, other guests have probably already made noise complaints as it is. Better our story corroborates theirs,” Cable said as he padded across the room and _finally_ slipped into his night clothes. **Deliberately** flexing his entire upper body as he pulled on the shirt.

“Fucking tease,” Cable heard Wade accuse _almost_ beneath his breath.  
Felt good to know he could rile the guy up like that. 

“So, should we ask for another room? It _is_ our ‘honeymoon’ after all,” Cable reminded with a seductive raise of an eyebrow. 

“Really? Even though we have work in the morning?” Wade asked, practically bouncing at the thought. The **implications**. 

“Well, I figure we must’ve just taken care of half the job already,” Cable said with a sardonic glance around the overcrowded room. “We’ve got the time-“

And his sentence was cut short by his husband scooping him bodily into his arms and throwing the both of them together halfway across the room and onto the oversized bed. Which surprisingly only _threatened_ to crack in half upon impact. 

“I’ll bet we have another minute and a half till the authorities get here; let’s make it count!” Insisted the crazed man Cable had agreed to spend the rest of his life with. Squishing him down into the bed covers in his enthusiasm. 

All Cable could do in response was laugh. Big belly jiggling, eye watering, lung hurting laughs. Which only doubled down when the poor first responders walked through the door to find the horrible mess of dismembered bodies and a hairless man ripping the clothes off a cyborg using nothing but his teeth. 

Man, life had the _weirdest_ sense of humor.  
And Cable was _so_ telling Ness about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the ending doesn’t make sense, might I be so bold as to suggest a read through of the story Waiting Around To Die. It is the companion work to this one and will fill in any blanks. Happy hunting! And thanks for sticking it through to the end!


End file.
